Dear Queenie,
I don’t much like my wife’s sister, but she lives on another island and we don’t see her very often. It turns out she asked my wife to lend her a big amount of money and she did, without telling me and without getting her sister to put anything in writing about repaying the loan.
I only found out about this by accident and I am angry at my wife for not telling me about it.
Now it’s been more than a year and her sister hasn’t even started to pay her back.
Queenie, how can I forgive my wife for keeping this a secret from me?—Angry husband
Dear husband,
Your wife knows how you feel about her sister and took it for granted that you would not want to give her any money. However, your wife loves her sister and wanted to help her out.
The fact that she did it without telling you was not right and I hope you can forgive her for that if she promises not to do anything like it again.
Dear Queenie,
My brother is going to make 50 years and I think this is a big occasion. The problem is we have been on the outs for a long time because he is just plain impossible to be with for more than a few minutes.
However, I don’t want this big birthday to pass without mentioning it and hoping he has learned or will learn to behave better.
Queenie, what should I do?—Younger brother
Dear Brother,
There is no guarantee that this landmark birthday will motivate your brother to change his ways. He could just get worse as he realises he is getting older.
However, by all means send him a birthday card with a note wishing him well, and hope he gets the unwritten message.
Dear Queenie,
I used to be good friends with my next-door neighbour, but then she started flirting with my husband. We both told her to stop and she did, but I can’t go back to being friends with her, it just isn’t the same anymore.
The thing is, our children are still friends and play together all the time so I can’t avoid seeing her and she seems to think things are back the way they used to be.
Queenie, am I being mean? If not, how do I get it across to her that things aren’t the same anymore?—Fed up
Dear Fed up,
You are not being mean. And, if necessary, just tell her straight out (but without anger if you can manage it), “Sorry, after what you did we aren’t friends anymore.”
Dear Queenie,
My father is an abusive bully with a very bad temper and my mother walked out and divorced him years ago and wouldn’t let us children see him for fear of what he might do to us if he got mad at us.
Now our father’s father, our grandfather, is making 100 years and our uncle, his other son, is throwing a big party for him and the whole family is invited, including us, and we are planning to go. If our father is there we will be polite and keep away from him.
But, Queenie, what do we do if he gets mad and makes some kind of scene?—Worried son
Dear Son,
Keep away from him and, if he even looks like he is going to do physical harm to anyone or anything, call the police, because that would be a crime in progress. Who knows? It might even be a wake-up call for your father to start learning to control himself better.
Dear Queenie,
An older woman who is a friend of mine has been a mentor and like a mother to me. She has helped me through some bad times in my relationship with my married boyfriend, which she doesn’t approve of, and when I decided to break up with him she gave me her full support.
But I just couldn’t stick to my decision and now she is turning away from me and giving me the “cold shoulder.”
Queenie, I feel so alone without support!—Young friend
Dear Friend,
Your “mother figure” disapproved of your relationship to begin with and now apparently she is fed up with your inability to stick to your decision to end it. If you are lucky and find it within yourself to end this relationship of which she (and I) disapproves, perhaps you will be able to patch things up with her. But as for the relationship with your boyfriend, you should end it for your own sake, not for hers.
